Unfunny Comedians

BONNIE HUNT!!!

Tim Allen

Aziz Ansari, totally hacky material. I dont get the appeal.

Most of them are not funny.

Seinfeld. I just don’t get it. So GD smug all the time.

Daniel Tosh. That’s one angry dude.

Lisa Lampinelli. Used to be funny, but something went wrong.

Any female stand up comedian. Sad but true.

Jay Leno

Seth Myers

So many, actually.

A guy I went to school earns a living touring as a stand-up. He's toured with some famous comedians like Dane Cook. He's painfully unfunny, and his twitter feed is completely basic and obvious.

R12 why not say his name if he's a public figure?

R13 I've run into him in random places and he's friendlier than he was in high school. I tried to find him funny, but I've given up.

Tig Notaro.

r14 Nick Thune

I rarely find them funny. Some of them are cute and have winsome personalities--like Wanda Sykes. I enjoy listening to her, but I don't laugh.

Wow, that guy is awful.

He looks so immature, but he's my age.

Dane Cook, how he was famous for even five minutes is beyond me.

Jeff Foxworthy, Larry The Cable Guy, etc. most of those "country" type comedians are truly awful.

Whitney Cummings, I prefer female comedians, but, not this one.

Judy Tenuta. Painfully so. You can only cringe so many times during a comic's set. And, of course, she spits her gum at you. Wonder WHET to her.

Emo Philips

Roseanne

Brooke Shields on Suddenly Susan

Lenny Bruce (I actually bought a couple CDs of his due to his reputation and nary a laugh or even a smile to be had). A chore. Similarly, George Carlin (sorry, but he did nothing for me, even when I was trying to respectful of his legendary talent and whatever). Cheech and Chong (the 1st movie was funny, the rest, forget it). Seinfeld, Handler, Schumer, Sarah Silverman all suck. Oddly enough, Paula Poundstone could be incredibly funny, and even more startlingly, Ellen used to be funny in her standup. It was 9 million years ago but she was pretty great sometimes (this is from back when Comedy central was mostly standup shows).

Sherri shephard

Robin williams sadly he was only funny as a cartoon genie.

Kathy Griffin"s last few stand-up specials have been 100% unfunny.

Jim Carrey

I like Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But what specifically has he done that you find funny?

Ellen

My favorite comedians tend to be that perfect combination of funny and angry, but Lewis Black is way too much of the latter and not nearly enough of the former - listening or watching him becomes incredibly ponderous after about a minute and a half.

And r24 has the world’s worst taste...

Joan Rivers

Gilbert Gottfried

Ellen actually was a funny stand up at one point. She had that awkward funny thing happening. She is not funny on her show.

I don't find manic Robin Williams funny. He scares me.

Ricky Gervais is terrible onstage. I quite liked the Office and Extras - then he disappeared up his own arsehole.

Janeane Garofalo is funny?

Several posters have named people who used to be funny but something has happened and now the most reaction they can expect are a few polite chuckles. That has to hurt.

Peter Sellers

Although she definitely has comedic timing and skills on camera, Zooey Deschanel is very serious and unfunny in real life.

[R35] Janeane is very funny.

R38 she was in Romy and Michelle

[R39] And was fabulous in it.

Janeane's last comedy album is great. She's aged her humor really well and didn't fall trap to the Gen X nihilist thing that other comics of her era have pigeonholed themselves into. I'm looking at you, David Cross.

[R41] Cross is good too.

Jim Jeffries, Australian nightmare.

R34, Robin Williams "scares" you, as in Present Tense? Newsflash......

Jay Leno.

Richard Belzer and Richard Lewis. Saw them at NYC's Town Hall, and they were completely outclassed and "outfunnied" by their opening act, Ted Alexandro.

Why are they ALL so angry?

Notaro, Jefferies, Tosh, Black, Spade - wow.

What the hell is so funny about Nikki Glaser?

When I said I was going to become a comedian, they all laughed. Well, they're not laughing now, are they?

Kevin Hart. I'm convinced that the relative novelty of his stature is all that gives him career mileage.

Ingmar Bergman.

All American comedians. Very restricted in what they can actually say, and too many depend on facial expression and statements followed by silence to make a point. only exception was Joan Rivers who said fuck convention.

I'm perplexed as to how Amy Schumer got to be as famous as she is. She's a total one-note comic, her entire act is how she's a fat drunk slut who hates her body. That's it, over and over and over, every time I've seen her stand-up.

George Carlin was never funny. Ever.

Adam Sandler owns this thread.

I think that Ken Jeong (The Hangover) is the unfunniest "comedian" alive.

Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

Gallagher. Was that melon-smashing cretin ever funny, eldergays?

Has anyone seen Chonda Pierce? She's a Christian comedian who mostly plays churches I guess, but she has moments where she can be surprisingly funny (a bit like Ellen when she was first starting out), but then she has this thing that takes me out of it every time where she pretends like what she's just said is soooooo racy and she should be ashamed of herself when what she's said is about as tame as an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Maybe it is racy for her demo.

58 replies and I’m the first to say Mindy Kaling?

Thanks to Hannah Gadsby, not being funny is the hot new trend in stand-up. It’s a deconstruction of the form, meaning it does the exact opposite of what people actually want.

I’d take the worst of Carrot Top over glum lesbians using stand-up to work through trauma.

I never thought Bill Cosby was funny in the least.

Does Whitney Cummings still refer to herself as a comedian?

She should be a lesson on what not to do.

Typical Whitney Cummings joke: Say something obvious and uninteresting. Repeat it. Restate it using different words. Say it again, but louder. Roll your eyes, mutter something like “I don’t know, you guys...” and do it all over again with a different “joke.”

When the audience refuses to laugh, yell something about your vagina.

Agree with all of you. So sad, it's not funny.

I've found some of them never funny like robin Williams Adam Sandler Jim carrey norm Macdonald and Dennis Miller. Others were at some point in their career but no longer. Like Roseanne Barr, Russell peters, Ellen, that fat korean chick, Kathy griffin.

I like Wanda Sykes and Joan rivers had me laughing for almost two hours in one of her last shows.

Margaret Cho was a riot years ago, but she really lost the plot. Hasn't been funny in a long time.

And Roseanne, well there's no explanation needed.

How timely. Today I was thinking of comics whose careers are incomprehensible to me. One name that came to me was Orson Bean. Was he ever funny ? Did he act in anything ? All I can recall is that he would appear as a guest on the occasional talk show, he would say something mildly amusing and the studio audience would laugh their heads off.

Agree Margaret Cho used to be funny.

Sometimes it's hard to stay funny as you age: life gets serious, people die, everything gets repetitive.

Though there are lots that NEVER were funny, even in their 20s.

Bill cosby for sure and all those people on mash and happy days never laughed when I tried to watch and see what the big deal was.

Dennis Miller is just bitter.

[quote]l American comedians. Very restricted in what they can actually say, and too many depend on facial expression and statements followed by silence to make a point. only exception was Joan Rivers who said fuck convention.

R51, have you ever heard (the tragically late) Bernie Mac? The only comedian in the last twenty years to make me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe for a few seconds.

I often wonder if he were still alive in today's tender-to-the-touch/safe spaces/woke/OUTRAGE! culture, would Bernie Mac be forced to neuter his comedy?

I don't see how American comedians are "restricted in what they can say." What does that even mean?

Andrew Dice Clay

Did Bernie Mac goof on black culture? He did gays, but that’s comedic laziness.

Jerry Lewis. Guess all you had to do was go cross eyed, make stupid faces and put a glass in your mouth to be considered a comedic genius in the 60’s.

[R73] He also thought women weren't funny.

Jerry Lewis was excruciating. I think he must've been a generational thing, like Abbot and Costello. Later generations just found them to be torture.

The Sklar brothers are painfully unfunny. Not sure how they appeared in almost every Vh1 pop culture special, especially since they never had anything of value to say.

Kathy Griffin went from hilarious (watch Hot Cup of Talk and Allegedly) to boring. The last show of hers I saw a few years back was her recapping reality shows. The audience was bored. Her jokes were stale. For example, how the Kardashians are a scourge on society. Never mind that she sucks up to Kris Jenner every chance she can.

I agree about Kathy Griffin. She was hilarious when she skewered real A-Listers like Gwyneth and Cruise, and her story about Brooke Shields' wedding with Brooke's out of control drunk mother is still one of the funniest stand-up bits I've ever heard. But then she did nothing but reality shows she watches and celebs no one gives a shit about like the Kardashians and Clay Aiken and she just lost it.

That ventriloquist (can't remember his name). My parents think he's hilarious.

[R78] Jeff Dunham.

Sarah Silverman owns this thread.

Rt3, Au contraire! He was great as the Hippie Dippy Weatherman, the Sports Announcer, and other bits at the inception of his career.

Carlin was great, you have no taste.

I agree about Sarah Silverman. Annoying AF.

Kathy's gotten her edge back since the Trump scandal and her current tour is pretty terrific. I agree that she'd been in quite the slump for a few years prior. Once she started hanging out with the people she used to make fun of, she lost her spark. Thankfully, now, a lot of those people have defended her, so she can talk shit about them again.

Margaret Cho is probably my #1, but I saw her most recent live show last year and I was so, so disappointed that she was just regurgitating material she'd been using since 1999. Her new material was pretty stellar, but it only took up maybe 30% of her show, and the remaining was the stuff she's already used since literally her first hour long stand up special. Obviously she's just coasting at this point, but it still sucks to have seen that, especially as a longtime fan.

R82 agree, and I actually like his later stuff the best. It almost never happens that a comedian gets better as he (or she) gets older.

[R86] He couldn't do the hippie thing forever, especially when you consider he was past 30 when he started doing it.

R87 I never really liked his hippie act all that much anyway. His angry stuff was way better...and funnier.

[R88] It had its moments.

How's Wanda Sykes of late? Liked her stuff.

colin kane

I think because people don’t think of mindy Kaling as a comic in the first place. What is funny is thinking about these people coming to check this thread when their google alert goes off.

Melissa McCarthy was much funnier when she was obese. She needs to gain her weight back before I watch another one of her movies. Stephen Colbert is not funny at all. Back in the day, Paul Lynde was hilarious, particularly on the Hollywood Squares. Kristin Wiig makes me ROFL. Check out her Seven Minutes in Heaven skit on Youtube.

Eldergays will recall The Ed Sullivan Show as a holding pen for unfunny comedians IMHO. I recall such one-trick ponies as Professor Irwin Corey (1914-2017 !), Senor Wences (1896 -1999 !), Myron Cohen, Mr. Pastry. Comediennes like Sophie Tucker and Moms Mabley had to clean up their raunchy acts for tv so it's hard to fairly judge them.

I disagree with whomever posted Emo Phillips here.

It's like asking for unsexy porn stars.

It's so subjective.

One trick pony, r94?

Jimmy Carr

R97 A very delightful tune but alas, when on Ed Sullivan, Corey's many appearances consisted solely of his double-talk routine as the Professor. If he did anything else on that program I stand corrected. The Wikipedia entry for him is quite entertaining I have to admit.

Bill Hicks.

Sorry.

Anthony Jeselnik, although I would still fuck him. Hard.

Pauly shore , jimmy fallon own this.

Bill Hicks. A creepy pedo, he openly expressed his attraction to underage girls. His stand up was a rip off of George Carlson, but he wasn't as funny.

[R103] It's George Carlin, not Carlson. Fuck off, troll.

Eddie Izzard. I tried for months while working with him. I just don't get it. Eh.

All the comedians that get interviewed on Howard Stern.

IMO I can only name the good ones. On the whole I listen to every stand up comedian, and wonder, why are people laughing? George Carlin was a genius. Steven Wright was great. EARLY Eddie Murphy on SNL doing impressions etc was a genius. No one else really comes to mind.

Paula Poundstone.

Kristen Wiig is the most bewilderingly overrated cast member of SNL ever. I can't picture her successfully doing stand-up because she's soft spoken and not funny at all.

I hated Wiig ‘s character Gilly (sp?) on SNL...soooo painfully unfunny and she acted like it was this great creation.

Bobby Lee

For those of you who don't like Carlin, perhaps you're thinking a comedian tells jokes. He was not a joke teller. He was an astute, I'd say brilliant, of his current scene and the human condition. He went beyond the label comedian, I'd actually say he was more of a philosopher and in my mind, a genius.

Jimmy Fallon

113 replies and NO mention of KEVIN HART, THE KING OF UNFUNNY! 😒 You bitches are sluppin'. Just sayin'

Another vote for Seth Myers.

Kristen Wiig, Kathy Griffin, Louis CK (didn’t like him before the accusations, just don’t find him funny), Seinfeld

Joan Rivers as well. However, I think she's really good at interviewing people, i.e., being a talk show host.

Louis CK. Unwatchable. Even if he's jerking off.

Glad to see three of my favorites not mentioned. I'd also disagree with Daniel Tosh being included here. His recorded stand-ups are very funny.

For the person who asked about why so many of them are angry, it's because many/most comedians are not happy people at their core.

[quote]Did Bernie Mac goof on black culture? He did gays, but that’s comedic laziness.

Yes, he did, R72, but most of it was pretty "insidery," to coin a phrase. Which I liked very much, because I got all the references (even though I'm a Southern mouse and he was a Chicago cat), because after all, black Chicago is just Mississippi with mass transit and deep dish pizza. And Oprah. But it did limit his crossover appeal until very late in his life, unfortunately.

But Christ, was he funny. And fearless. I loved seeing him live, the way he connected with the audience so effortlessly, the way he prowled the stage like a caged jaguar.

I miss him.

Tig can be funny on rare occasions but she's also the prime example where the ratio of hype and quality is completely out of whack.

I don't care for Daniel Tosh's show, but I agree his stand up is funny.

[quote]113 replies and NO mention of KEVIN HART, THE KING OF UNFUNNY! 😒 You bitches are sluppin'. Just sayin'

Try reading the whole thread before you post stupid shit like that, R114, you fat-fingered moron.

The two nobodies hosting the emmys.. why?

Dennis Miller, Norm McDonald, Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen. Fascists aren't funny.

Painfully unfunny and annoying: Tig Notaro.

Olden days: Bob Hope.

Eddie Izzard is hilarious. He's Darth Vader piece in the canteen and he's death by cake piece are hilarious. Also the story about losing his virginity twice. So funny.

[quote]Carlin was great, you have no taste.

No, R83. He sucks.

R117, Your post is an excellent example of what Pres. Clinton meant when he said, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."

Joan Rivers is DEAD. There is no Present Tense with her!

I can't take Kristen Wiig because....double "i".

And no chin.

Kevin Hart’s tiny stature and gay face gives him legs.

r8 Kathleen Madigan is hilarious, sorry.

Bill Mahr. Fucking pig.

I think Robin Williams was a pretty good actor, but he was a shit comedian. I think he just talked so fast that people laughed out of fear that they'd appear not to get the joke. There was no joke, unless being high on coke and rambling is funny.

Another one who loves Kathleen Madigan. She's a riot, and should be more famous than she is. Listen to her tell the story about going to Paris with her mother and her mother's elderly neighbor....

George Lopez (ugh). He HATES white people and is none too subtle about it. It's all well and good to laugh at Anglos—Carlos Mencia does it beautifully—but Lopez's "jokes" are mean, vicious, hateful and unfunny.

Richard Brand

Jeff Dunham is the gold standard of never-funny-why-is-he-popular

Ralphie May, the morbidly obese jerk who is now dead. Besides being irrelevant, he wasn't funny at all.

Agreed, R131 and R134. Recently rewatched one of her sets on Netflix and she was consistently very, very funny.

Is Norm Macdonald transitioning, or did he just have a face transplant?

Cristela Alonzo isn't funny and she has a history of stealing jokes. She had a short lived ABC sitcom and it did ok in the ratings for airing on Friday nights. Alonzo was diva with the producers and the studio and that played in part in ABC canning the show.

Carrot Top, my number 1 unfunny jackass and the painfully bad Steve Harvey. He has NEVER been funny!

Most of these comedians named have funny moments that mainstream latch onto and want more and more - but agree overall most are unfunny. But at least they are putting themselves out there.

R60 - thank you for this. I’ve gotten into a few arguments with SJW types who think she was some sort of godsend because of her trauma and painfully honest, unfunny set. She was mildly amusing the first 7-10 min of that Netflix special, but totally lost me when she tried to get serious and “revolutionize” comedy. Give me a break. Awful.

r36=moron.

Anyway, Sellers was never a comedian in the sense of stand-up, so r36 is a double moron.

Chelsea Handler - I was disappointed when a few co-workers of mine said they watched her every night when she had a show, and they would re-hash her stupid monologue the next day. I have never heard her say anything funny, just bitchy sarcastic comments.

Surely, it's already been mentioned but just in case...BOB HOPE, patron saint of unfunny comedians.

Chelsea Handler could be very funny, but she's definitely a niche. She could be very bitchy, but it was usually directed towards people who did stupid things, so I found it amusing.

147 replies and no one has said Hannah Gadsby? Nanette was unwatchable.

Craig Kilborn - unfunny AND a douche what an awful combo.

R148. See r60.

IF I never see Sarah Silverman again.....

Yeah R150 I searched but the page didn't finish loading, I guess. Either way I agree .

Pay Attention!

Bridget Everett doing that dirty lyric/put men's heads in my cleavage thing.

Dennis Miller.

Michael Richardson

R156 Richards.

Will Ferrell, with his one schtick, which wasn't funny on SNL and continued to not be funny through a series of unfunny movies based on it.

Almost all of them.

I always hated Sarah Silverman and Paula Poundstone. Repugnant women, both of them. And very unfunny.

What about Murray Hill? Is Murray Hill funny?

Mary Jo Pehl is the personification of a persistent head cold.

MST3K was never the same once that head cold hit the screen.

Murray Hill is supremely unfunny, but a tireless persona so you almost have to admire her insistence on her Z-list aspirations.

Wasn't MUrrayhill a NY telephone prefix back in the days of rotary dialing?

r164 Murray Hill is a neighborhood in Manhattan.

That one who allegedly put her mouth on a little girls vagine😋 Paula Poundstone. Disgusting and NOTFUNNY!

“We put a man on the moon, so next, can we put a man with AIDS on the moon? And then...can we put ALL the men with AIDS on the moon?”

Some politically incorrect humor can be funny, but the fact that Sarah Silverman was cast in the film version of RENT (in the role of Alexi Darling, a character who appears only as a voice in the stage version!) blows my fucking mind.

And she’s now a Disney Princess, technically, in those “Wreck-It Ralph” movies.

Gross, unfunny, and always overrated.

Roy Blalock (Bianca Del Rio) is getting pretty one-note these days, too, but I liked his story about getting sent to therapy after making a dress out of a tablecloth when he was a kid.

More of that, please.

Why are all the funniest women lesbians (Lily Tomlin, Ellen, Cameron Esposito, Wanda Sykes,etc)?